Anthony Levandowski Keeps on Truckin’

Every weekday at a rock quarry northwest of Dallas, autonomous dump trucks roll down a dirt road and load up at the bottom of a 140-foot-deep mining pit. The trucks then drive a mile and a half to a rock crusher, where they lift their beds, drop the rocks, then turn around, heading back to the pit for the next load. The work is monotonous, repetitive and—because it involves huge quantities of heavy objects—potentially dangerous. That makes it a perfect job for a robot, says Anthony Levandowski, chief executive officer of Pronto, a San Francisco startup that equips heavy-duty trucks with cameras, GPS sensors and onboard computers that allow them to work without a person in the cab. “You’re driving the same loop over and over again,” he says. “It’s extremely difficult mentally. People don’t like doing it.” At the Lake Bridgeport quarry, where Levandowski’s seven dump trucks have been operating for the past year, workers have been freed up to focus on other tasks, such as operating the excavators that load rocks into the trucks.

The owner of the Lake Bridgeport quarry, Heidelberg Materials AG, has been impressed. On Feb. 24 the company plans to announce that it’s bringing Levandowski’s modified dump trucks to a dozen of its mines around the world. Heidelberg wouldn’t disclose the financial terms of the deal, but Levandowski says it calls for Pronto to retrofit and operate at least 100 more trucks over the next three years. In a statement, Heidelberg Chief Technical Officer Axel Conrads praised Pronto’s system for its ability to increase production safety and efficiency.